Not terribly cryptic

[hirez]

Cellnet are a hopeless shower. Really.

MMS orGPRS? What on earth?

Of course, the fact that this might be a limitation isn't mentioned until you wonder why nothing works...

Comments

[sexbat.livejournal.com]

rumour has it that, on certain networks if you sign up for MMS you end up with GPRS for free (£0 per MB) ... this might need a hack though

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That wouldn't surprise me. I've not bothered to investigate how much of this stuff is alleged to work (barely, it appears), mind.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I don't use media messaging at all (except to let silverAJ send me nekky pics occasionally)... so I have the default, bolt on MMS package which ain't cheap, but if you barely use it, who fucking cares?

There's then GPRS **and** another one (CSD?)

GPRS is always on, and you tend to pay by the K. Great for browsing, where you want to be billed by information, not time.

The other one (the old system used by WAP phones, I think) is a pay-by-time connection, but tends to get better bandwidth. Good for a download, for instance, or when you need data faster and don't mind paying a few pence more if you dally while browsing.

My experience with GPRS has more been that it's 'always OFF' recently.

I believe that most phone companies will give you numbers to connect via any of the above, though you may have to ASK to get the info for some (it's as simple as typing in a server addy).

Frankly, as much as I love me tech, I still don't go online from my phone except in an emergency... unless your company's paying, it's not cheap enough yet.

Speshly if you have ADSL at home and can load the week's film times, the route to the pub you're visiting, etc, etc from THAT via bluetooth / IRDA.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Pix? SCRIBE!!1!!
[/B1ff] (Do people still get old-school usenet jokes?)

A lot of this is hacker-toy-frenzy. I have a New Shiny Thing and this is the functional equivalent of having it in bits on the livingroom carpet by Christmas lunchtime. I do networky things for a living - if my phone appears to do PPP then I want to know the details. Just because.

(I've a particularly choice rant about ringtones, but that's probably Old News for you industry types.)

I'm with you on the connection-model: Palm got it right first time - the handheld device is only ever going to be used for data-entry in extremis so make sure the PC-sync works right.

It's interesting to note that when internet applications were still evolving, the Septics wrote stuff which assumed a free phone-connection, while the UK programs did as much stuff offline as possible before connecting briefly to do the data-transfer.

Hm. Rambling now.

[sexbat.livejournal.com]

I'm currently running a Treo 270 so I have a proper web browser, mail client, AIM client, and various bits of J2ME goodness as well as Palm OS and a phone. I've enjoyed the GPRS element .. particularly for IMing - to date my bill from Orange at £3 per MB has been £1.79

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

> sign up for MMS you end up with GPRS for free

I am on O2 (Cellnet) and have never been billed for GPRS (in the UK) since signing up for MMS. I use GPRS for both regular WAP browsing and GPRS data (regular web browsing through a browser Java midlet), as well as for MMS.

I don't think it is a hack, but for the record, I put in the same login/gateway details for both my GPRS MMS settings as for my GPRS WAP settings.

I expect I *will* be billed for GPRS data whilst I was in France, though- and I used both GPRS WAP and GPRS data there (though annoyingly, only Bouygues Telecom would allow me to roam with GPRS- Orange and SFR both refused GPRS; never tried Itineris).

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

My GPRS works flawlessly provided I don't attempt to use it whilst roaming on a network that doesn't support it (Orange France, for instance).

The only times I've ever had any problem, it has invariably turned out to be my web server being crashed, or my own WML pages having syntax errors.

I used to have all kinds of GPRS connection problems on my Nokia 8310, but with my Nokia 6100 I have had *none*. Nada. Nowt. And I use WAP & GPRS data like it is going out of fashion (what with me not being billed for it, and all- see Sexbat's post).

FYI, my details are:

Nokia 6100 with firmware V04.70 23-04-03 NPL-2

Menu - Services - Settings - Edit Active Service Settings

Session mode permanent
Connection security off
Data bearer GPRS
GPRS access point wap.o2.co.uk
IP address 193.113.200.195
Authentication type normal
Login type automatic
Username o2wap
Password password

Menu - Connectivity - GPRS - GPRS Modem Settings - Edit active access point

GPRS access point mobile.o2.co.uk

Menu - Messages - Message settings - Multimedia msgs. - Connection settings - Edit active multimedia settings

Homepage http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002
Session mode permanent
Data bearer GPRS
GPRS access point wap.o2.co.uk
IP address 193.113.200.195
Authentication type normal
Username o2wap
Password password

[neilh.livejournal.com]

Circuit Switched Data. Theres a variant High Speed Circuit Switched Data too which will give you up to around 42kbps (depending on network support, Orange go to 28kbps but iirc no other network in the UK bothered with it). GPRS should give you better burst data rates than CSD, but has potential for latency problems and is, most likely, more expensive. WCDMA gives you 384kbps packet and 64kbps CSD, but theres contention problems with the packet switching (well here on Docomo anyway) which makes your actual data rate a good deal less.

PLUG!!!

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

MMS orGPRS? What on earth?

Utter codswallop. I am on O2/Cellnet and I have both MMS and GPRS. You played with both on my phone holiday, remember?

What they mean is "Do you want MMS with your GPRS, or do you just want plain old GPRS without MMS?". Answer: You want MMS with your GPRS, so just ask for MMS.

GPRS is a prerequisite for MMS so if you get MMS they *have* to give you GPRS. GPRS is used as the transport method FX: trails off into seven-layer protocol mumbling...

---

Anyway, seeing as we're talking about things WAP-like, time for me to plug my baby:



Read Victorian classic literature on your mobile phone! Shelly, HG Wells, Jules Verne, Bram Stoker etc.

Except that one of the drives on the server's RAID array is U/T, so expect the service to be bouncy until I swap it out next Monday.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

well factualised, that man :)

Re: PLUG!!!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. I recall. And with 20/20 hindsight, a second coffee and some poking in the config, that much is obvious.

However. Woman At O2 said "MMS or GPRS. Can't have both, computers won't support it." and until a couple of hours later, I wasn't in much of a position to argue. And there's this. (http://www.filesaveas.com/gprs.html)

[ Shrug ]

I'll bother them again tomorrow. If the one works, but the interweb varnishes, I shall become sarcastic. If not downright testy.

Lord alone knows what's going through O2's collective heads. Pictures of fluffy kittens, like as not.

Re: PLUG!!!

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

No, they *have* to give you GPRS to their MMS APN to give you MMS. That's not (necessarily) the same thing as giving you GPRS to the APN that gets you the Wider Internet.

And we have devices on which we can show you one working and not the other - though it may be that your Cunning Hack will get around it.... :-)

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

It would seem that whilst Other Airtime Providers may have figured that out, O2 Cellnet have not.

Lucky us.

I do rather think that it is stretching the word "hack" to describe blindly plugging in connection details supplied by the provider. I mean, it isn't as if I sat down and thought "Gosh, I wonder if I can defeat their billing system by using their MMS gateway as my Internet gateway?". I actually thought that was what I was supposed to do- I only had one set of connection details.

If that isn't how you're supposed to do it, that still doesn't make it a "hack", that makes it an administrative cock-up.

I did wonder why I wasn't being billed for GPRS data, but until Sexbat mentioned it, I wasn't about to make a huge fuss about it. I presumed I wasn't being billed simply because I hadn't exceeded whatever bundled allowance I had. It isn't like I'm streaming movies to my laptop, I only use it for MMS, WAP and a few regular web pages over Java- can't be that much.

Does anyone know what volume of bundled GPRS data comes with the 25-pound-a-month package with a fiver's worth of bolt-ons?

Call me a ludite but...

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

... I just use mine to talk to people.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Apparently, their billing system is famously ramshackle and shite. I'm sure thay'll work out how to do it eventually...

Re: Call me a ludite but...

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

That simply doesn't make enough profit, and can no longer be condoned.

Re: Call me a ludite but...

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Don't tell me, you still wear a watch, right?

Re: Call me a ludite but...

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

No I tells the time by lookin' at the sun and doin' a few quick trigonometric calculations

Re: Call me a ludite but...

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I don't actually own one. I did have one for a couple of months, but it broke.

[lucifein.livejournal.com]

Hello, I ventured into here through the door marked 'sheepthief's friends', but it seems you know my favorite bouncy man, hazeii and also the bestest goth chick ever lucy_pointycat. I live in brighton and i'm trying to encourage sheepthief to come take a look down here, and I spend a lot of time in bristol too lately, been over to support maliceuk at her 'Subspecies' night.(Upstairs of the Hatchett, Frogmore Street) I hope you don't mind but I added you to my journal friends because we seem to have a few friends in common and I liked your journal. Anyways, taken up too much space here now. Maybe catch you out in bristol sometime. Byeeee

~HS~
Luci xxx

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Sure, go right ahead. Don't expect any of it to make sense, mind. (If it does, please let me know and I'll delete those bits.)